Wednesday, January 05, 2011

BOOKS I READ IN 2010

Thanks to my friend Winslow's suggestion, I decided to post a list of all the books I read last year. Other than the first ten, which I picked as my favorites for the North Coast Journal, they're in no specific order. There might be a few I forgot. This year I'm going to make an effort to get off the new release treadmill and read more older stuff.

The Professor by Terry Castle

Long, Last, Happy by Barry Hannah

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Role Models by John Waters

Weathercraft by Jim Woodring

Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens

Autobiography of Mark Twain Volume 1

The Insufferable Gaucho by Roberto Bolaño

X'ed by Charles Burns

Antwerp By Roberto Bolaño

Zero History by William Gibson

Spook Country by William Gibson

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

Lowboy by John Wray

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

C by Tom McCarthy

Wilson by Dan Clowes

Point Omega by Don DeLillo

In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

In-House Weddings by Bohumil Hrabal

Poem Strip by Dino Buzzati

You Are There by Jean-Claude Forest and Jacques Tardi

Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

Reality Hunger by David Shields

Life by Keith Richards

Just Kids by Patti Smith

A Bomb in Every Issue by Peter Richardson

Pictures at a Revolution by Mark Harris

Griftotopia by Matt Taibbi

The Whites of Their Eyes by Jill Lepore

On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno by David Shepard

Apathy for the Devil by Nick Kent

American on Purpose by Craig Ferguson

Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt

Listen to This by Alex Ross

The Second City Unscripted by Mike Thomas

I'm Dying Up Here by William Knoedelseder

But Beautiful: A Book about Jazz by Geoff Dyer

Hail, Hail, Euphoria! by Roy Blount Jr.

Everything You Know about Indians Is Wrong by Paul Chaat Smith

Love and Rockets: New Stories 3 by Los Bros. Hernandez

Since I haven't posted here in over a year, I think it's safe to say that this blog is kaput. It's been fun, and I hope to do a completely updated new blog somewhere else soon. Don't hold your breath though.

Friday, January 01, 2010

FIVE FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2009

Love In Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet (Soft Skull)

A collection that uses the lives of real historical characters and theirinteractions with animals to create short stories that display a rare mix ofintelligence, humor and emotional resonance. Some are heartbreaking, someare funny, and a few are just weird. Madonna shoots a pheasant on herEnglish estate and muses on the Kaballah, Thomas Edison electrocutes anelephant, Noam Chomsky tries to unload his granddaughter's gerbil habitat atthe town dump, and in the title story a famous psychologist's scientificobjectivity crumbles in an alcoholic breakdown. Millet has wit and style tospare.

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli (Pantheon)

Mazzucchelli abandoned a potentially lucrative career in mainstream comicsto develop his art and follow his muse, and this is the glorious result. Thestory of an arrogant, emotionally stunted architect who hits bottom andreclaims his soul, this graphic novel is both complex and affecting. The artuses varying muted color palettes to suggest narrative time and mood, andthe characters are rendered in separate styles to indicate their their idiosyncratic perspectives. What could have been just a cold formalist exercise in style is in Mazzucchelli's hand a groundbreaking creative work that equallyvalues both head and heart.Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original by Robin D. G.Kelley (Free Press)

In this biography Kelley dispels more than a few myths about thelegendary jazz pianist and composer. A scholar of African Americanhistory and a pianist, he deeply understands both the music and the milieu thatMonk functioned in, and shows that Monk was better schooled in music thancondescending critics of his time knew. Kelley also makes clear that Monksuffered from undiagnosed bipolar disorder most of his life and was veryfortunate to have strong women in his life who nurtured his genius - fromhis mother, who indulged his early interest in music, to his wife Nellie andthe Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, who supported him financially inlean times. A detailed and definitive look into the life of a central figurein twentieth century American music.Big Machine by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)

The story of an ex-junkie named Ricky Rice who is initiated into a secretsociety called The Unlikely Scholars and undertakes a quest to find amysterious Voice that has haunted African Americans for hundreds of years,Big Machine takes big chances. LaValle has a gift for creating an epic thatfunctions on an intimate human scale though, and his demotic wit keeps thesometimes fantastic proceedings earthbound and believable. His combinationof potboiler suspense and literary panache suggest a Stephen King novel aswritten by Ralph Ellison.Zeitoun by Dave Eggers (McSweeneys)

The real life story of a Syrian American contractor who was snared in apost-Katrina Homeland Security nightmare, Eggers tells Zeitoun's tale in acrisp self effacing style that makes the book all the more powerful.Abdulrahman Zeitoun stayed behind in New Orleans during the hurricane and heroicallyhelped rescue both people and animals from drowning in the early stages ofthe flood, only to be arrested without charge and held without communicationfor months in a makeshift Guantanamo style concentration camp on our ownshores. A book that provokes disbelief, anger and admiration for Zeitoun'sdogged resilience.

We wrote a broadside "Message from Bigfoot" flyer, posted in the dark of night throughout Arcata, that pissed off a few humorless hippies, a few of whom actually felt physically threatened by Bigfoot. Many were torn down in anger after a day or two.